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Our Trip To Maple Lake Ontario – Long Weekend & Weeks After – Christopher’s 19th Birthday PHOTOS

Maple — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 11:27:13 +0000

Chris's 19th - Roger, Chris, & Jim - August 20, 2011

After tomorrow it is officially vacation for Roger and me:

Chris has to go to school and work and Jim has a still-new job clocking in 6 or 7 days a week–and a real-no-excuses boss. Fortunately, Jim had a trip back east my see his grandparents not too long ago. <3

Chris is flying into Buffalo, N.Y. –20 miles from the Falls– on Friday morning—leaving Sunday evening. My mom’s memorial is on Sunday August 28th …with folks coming in to the Haliburton Highlands so we decided to make it more vacation-y and stay overnight at a close to everything place in Niagara Falls. Three stars that my oldest son helped me very much in finding–for cheap–check out the topographic map of how easy it is to walk to the Falls! Excitement!

Niagara Falls Ontario--topographic & map view

… then the next morning at 11 a.m.–perfect-ish for a night owl like me…pick up Chris and do something by the Falls before heading back to Maple Lake until Labour Day… is the plan.

PHOTOS: Chris’s birthday at Fridays’ tonight- He refused the singing. (boo):

Chris 19th birthday aug20-2011-fridays-schaumburg-il-by cyn-mccrackan

- Plus: No one* takes my picture – further proof

*only me

August 19 2011 - Son's 19th birthday Fridays with entire nuclear family!

Some Friday's decor that made me nostalgic and I was already _in_ that frame of mind! * On another note: Was I the only chick that thought Linda Ronstadt was hot like 'this'--versus her hot pants-period (later)? I thought so. She's got really soulful eyes.

Happy 19th birthday, Christopher!

After dinner we saw this film:

Saw on August 20 2011

It was just OK…not great. A couple of the science-based plot holes really distracted me from the film. Also, they wasted Frieda Pinto (sp?) other than as eye candy.

Give an Inner-City Child A Chance to Enjoy Summer OUT of the City [VIDEO]

Maple — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 04:24:25 +0000

NOW is the time to give to The Fresh Air Fund—in any way you can:

Summer '94

Literally, all my life I’ve had a beautiful summer place to go.

Thanks to my grandparents, I grew up sometimes spending months on a crystal-clear lake in the breathtakingly beautiful Haliburton Highlands in Ontario, Canada. At the time however, my nuclear family had emigrated to Connecticut–just a stone’s throw from the great state of New York and where I spent the rest of my year. My dad kept the radio on especially in the morning and I’d hear PSA’s for The Fresh Air Fund. It was hard as a child to imagine what it would be like stuck in the suburbs all summer long–never mind the inner city! Later, TV adverts made an even more indelible impression on me that I was exceptionally fortunate as there were many kids who were not.

After over 130 years of giving inner-city children the joy of a summer vacation with volunteer host families and at Fund camps, ‘creating unforgettable memories and fresh possibilities,’ no one needs to remind the not-for-profit The Fresh Air Fund of what a fantastic difference spending some of the summer away from the city can make for children.

Please consider: Finding out more about being a host family:

Reach The Fresh Air Fund by phone between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST, at: (800) 367-0003

Mailing address is:

The Fresh Air Fund
633 Third Avenue, 14th Floor
New York, NY 10017

The Fresh Air Fund on: Facebook

The Fresh Air Fund on: Twitter

Read an excerpt from a recent news story on how summer resources for city youth are going to be even more scarce in summer 2011:

NEW YORK — A rising number of children can look forward to excruciatingly boring school breaks this year as budget crises in places such as New York, Washington, D.C., Houston and Detroit rob them of the activities and programs that have long defined summer in the city for urban youngsters.

Swimming pools are being closed. Recreation centers are locking their doors. Library summer reading programs are suffering. Openings for short-term jobs have evaporated.

Yet, with a shift in perspective, do the kids have to be on the losing end?

‘We can’t afford to have children who don’t have positive places to be during the summer’

In New Orleans, Mayor Mitchell Landrieu this year fulfilled a campaign promise to boost city funding for children’s recreation facilities and summer programs, despite the city’s economic difficulties. While last summer, about 700 children participated in sports and literacy activities through the city’s summer camps for children ages 5 to 18, this year the city is expecting to serve 5,000 campers with the help of local organizations, private partnerships and doubled city funds, said Gina Warner, the executive director of the city’s Partnership for Youth Development.

The city – where nine out of 10 recreation sites were damaged by Hurricane Katrina – will be opening 12 pools this year, up from seven the year before and three the year before that. And libraries will be coordinating with the city summer camps to keep children reading, Warner said.

Warner said that while her city faces the same economic struggles as its counterparts around the country, elected officials see the New Orleans summer programs as not only an investment in children, but also a crime-prevention tool.

“We’re a very tourism-dependent city, and so we can’t afford to have children who don’t have positive places to be during the summer,” she said.

SOURCE Article excerpt: HuffPost - ‘Budget Cuts Rob City Kids Of Summer Activities’

Maple Lake Ontario: Photographs and New Found Memories 1985 & 1994 #PHOTOS #haliburtonhighlands #1985

Maple — Sat, 14 May 2011 22:57:00 +0000

Found photo: Summer 1985 - "jimmy & his mom' Going through recently the thousands of photographs that my mom had amassed, I came across this one, taken by my mom.

Hm, I thought, I’d not ever laid eyes on it or any of it’s companions. Of course Mom took it back in the days of film development vs. downloading and she often wouldn’t get a full 36 photos taken and developed until (as in this case) after vacation, maybe months later.

I remember this day, though. After dinner, with the sun about to begin disappearing, it was time for the little guy to get cleaned up for bedtime. Back then we had no proper shower or tub, so one would take a bar of Ivory soap and scrub up in the Lake. (Now of course, that is an explicit no-no. Not a problem as we’ve long had a shower and pretty cushy sink and vanity, thanks to my Mom and Dad).

Anyway, in this situation, it was not warm out so I got the little guy cleaned up as quickly as I could. He was extremely good–never kicked up a fuss and as you can see, was glad when it was over. This little guy, who ultimately grew up with no Dad, was the perfect kid. Bar none. Ask anyone who knew him then. A perfect child because, I think, he felt he needed to be.

…at least until his step-dad and then, little brother came along..

Maple Lake -Summer '94(?) - Jim (11) and Chris (2) w/ Roger in distant background -'Brothers.' I don't think we ever thought of these guys as 'half' anything. Just brothers. 'This was about as good as it got. And this was pretty darn good. One more 'found shot'. I have a bunch from this set as I took them but they have not yet been scanned 'cept for this one..

One more Maple Lake photo from ’85:

A chillier point in being 2 y.o., getting washed up on a not-warm evening on Maple Lake, Ontario in 1985. ( I am so glad I did not yet have big hair!)

I was a 25 y.o divorced mom. ‘Jimmy’ was born in 1983 when I was 23. I think I was a pretty good mom (grown-up Jim has said so–without prodding or bribing!)–certainly right in there, sometimes overprotective, but that’s pretty typical with one’s 1st child, never mind one with a dad 100% out of the picture. Plus, I’m ‘ya know, fierce as a mom (and if need be, rarely, other times).

Haliburton Highlands – Maple Lake Ontario – Fall 1969: Don’t Peel The Birch Bark!

Maple — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:31:32 +0000

Maple Lake "Back Field" 1969

Where were you in the fall of 1969? Just a couple of months past ” the summer of love”, at Maple Lake in the Haliburton Highlands pictorial evidence suggests that “everything (was) beautiful.”

As I’ve talked about before, my mom was not the best photographer in the world (nor am I) but she often had her camera at the really and I’m so very thankful to her that she did. Again Mom, sorry I complained so much about having to stop playing for a few minutes so you could snap a shot that I now realize preserved moments that are ever-increasingly from long ago. I’m so glad that we can savour these photos in the here and now.

I am one of nine first cousins that spent our summers when growing up living on Maple Lake. However in the mid-1960′s my father’s work compelled us to move to the eastern United States, 500 miles from our former home in Toronto. In the early years we traveled home many times a year– summertime of course, but Easter, Canadian Thanksgiving, and Christmas, too.

The photo here is of 7 of 9 of the cousins in what was called the “back field.” What is striking to me now is just how few birch trees remain. I don’t know if they simply aged or if a blight took them or a combination or neither. I love the pretty white birches but I’ll never forget my grandfather admonishing us to never peel bark from their trunks. Funny thing is I don’t recall anyone EVER doing so that we’d need to be warned but to this day my thought process goes like this: Oh, pretty birches –>image of my grandfather –> don’t peel the bark off them!

Free Flying For Kids At Stanhope Airport This Weekend!

Maple — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 18:59:09 +0000

Hey Folks!

Welcome to your weekend! (More events to be talked about here in a few hours!–plus later tonight, the weather for the weekend and week-to-come).

I’m sure you noted the name of this blog. Not much thought needed to go into naming it as it is written on behalf of the Haliburton Highlands and more specifically when an occasion arises, the Maple Lake area, which I believe is properly referred to as the Township of Dysart et al.

There’s a fantastic FREE opportunity, Young Eagle Flights for kids ages 8-17, to fly for free out of Stanhope Airport this weekend which calls to mind some of my own recollections of the airport.

My memories of Maple Lake–and one cannot separate Maple Lake from the airport if you take a quick peek on the map*–is how awesome it is when a plane takes off over the water. I’ll be in my default place–in the lake–hear the sound of the small aircraft engine, and look up to see the undercarriage of said small aircraft zipping by overhead, then watch the plane as it disappears into the distance.

*in the aerial photos it looks closer to Green Lake which it indeed may be

I’ve always loved that. However, when I was younger and my mom was around she expressed her displeasure with the noise. That left me perplexed but I’ll leave it at noting that we all have our own reactions/perceptions of things large and small. So dear mum would gently curse the plane flying just a short distance above us and I would silently cheer for the plane and think “Wow!”
My mum cannot make it up to the lake anymore but every time a plane flies out of Stanhope airport I think of her–then I think, “Cool!”

Free small airplane flights for kids age 8-17 (click on Visit Website for details)

Visit Website
Haliburton/Stanhope Airport Haliburton/Stanhope Airport road Minden
Contact: John Packer Tel: 705 754 2611
Email: airport@halhinet.on.ca